


Graveside

by epkitty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-War, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief moment in the aftermath of war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graveside

“Headmistress?”

“Ah, Mr. Potter. Come in, come in.” McGonagall stood and brusquely gestured her visitor forward. “You have it?”

Harry held up the flat, rectangular package, awkward in its size.

“Excellent. There’s a place,” she gestured to the empty wall between the portraits of Professors Dumbledore and Dippett. “I don’t wish to abandon you, but I’ve matters to attend to… If you’ll just take care of that for me…”

“But, Professor McGonagall…”

“It’s fine,” she said, a flicker of motherly concern and understanding in black eyes flashing his way before she swept from the room.

Harry abruptly found himself in a place overwhelmingly familiar, but sadly unlike what he remembered. No longer did whimsical silver and crystal gadgets whir and buzz, but only sat quiet and complacent behind glass cabinet doors. Gone was the perch with its remarkable tenant. The air of wonder and mystery was gone, leaving in its stead dark hardwood, bleak and unlit candles, and sad shadows.

Harry carefully set his parcel on the broad, empty desk, gazing at the portraits whose residents quietly snoozed in their frames. Patchy and unremarkable, the Sorting Hat sat silent on its shelf, underlined by the bright, jeweled sword of Gryffindor in its elegant glass case.

Harry circled round the desk and stood – silent and solemn – before Dumbledore’s portrait. The snores were wheezing and quiet. “Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore?”

The old wizard in the gilt frame awoke with a snort. “Ah!” He brightened immediately. “Harry, what can I do for you?”

Gesturing to the package behind him, Harry haltingly asked, “Is there a trick to it?”

“A simple sticking charm should do it,” he said with a wink.

Harry wanted to smile back, but couldn’t pull his muscles in the right direction, knowing this was only an imprint of the man he so loved as a boy.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re quite welcome, my boy.”

In the moment that Harry glanced away, the painted man had fallen back to sleep and – feigned or not – Harry found he had no wish to disturb him.

Harry withdrew his wand and one severing charm later, the brown paper and twine lay in tatters. He sighed with relief. The revealed canvas was empty.

The frame was simple and slightly smaller than most on the walls.

Harry affixed the picture with little difficulty and stepped back to see if it was level. A quick glance around proved that many men and women were faking their sleep as they examined the new frame through one slit eye. As soon as they noticed Harry’s attention, however, the snores and wheezing resumed.

“Er… Professor Snape?”

There was no movement against the dark, muddled background. “I’ve got to test the portrait once it’s in place, Sir. Could you just tell me that you’re there?”

Again there was no response and Harry gave a dull sigh.

“Severus,” Dumbledore said, his eyes easing open, “Just pop in and say hello.”

“To your duty, sir,” Dippett agreed from the other side.

One by one the other portraits awakened, and Harry glanced about at them.

They called out as they once had for Phineas Nigellus to appear. Phineas himself leveled a stern look at the new portrait, but said nothing.

“My but it did take a long time to arrive,” one of the old headmistresses said to another, and the pair gossiped on the likelihood that no previous portrait had existed for a painter to work with, or whether Snape had been so uncooperative a subject that the new portrait had simply been a work in three month’s progress.

“Severus,” Dumbledore cajoled once more.

Finally, the familiar dark tones broke from the frame. “I’ve nothing to say to that—”

“Do yourself credit, man!” Dippett demanded. “No such language—”

Whatever else he might have said was drowned out by the other portraits putting in their own say, disregarding entirely their previous efforts of phony sleep.

Snape’s hooked nose preceded the rest of him as he condescended to take his place in the Hogwarts portrait. His glare quieted the room and then settled on Harry.

“I think it unlikely that you shall have any need of my presence. Spinner’s End is not – nor is it ever likely to be – inhabited.”

“Just the same,” Harry said. “I can go now. So long as the connection’s working.”

“Then why are you standing about? It’s obviously functional.”

The sallow face and dark robes were exactly as Harry remembered, and he couldn’t trick himself to believing – as he so painfully did with Dumbledore – that this man was dead, and all that was left was nothing but a moving portrait that captured a fleeting essence. The eyes burned the same.

Harry still imagined the man could read his mind.

“Goodbye, then,” Harry muttered, turning away to dispose of the paper and twine.

Harry noticed that all the others had taken once more to dozing, except Dumbledore, who had one eye open, watching.

“Goodbye,” Snape managed in a low growl. “And… Harry. Well done.”

Harry spun about, eyes wide and mouth open, but all he faced was an empty frame. He nodded an acknowledgement to no one and left the office with quiet reverence. At the last, he turned to the room, one hand on the door, and looked back.

He found the place perhaps not so dreary as he’d thought upon his arrival.

The door clicked gently behind him and as he rode the spiraling stairs to the hall, a bit of a smile found pale lips and green eyes flashed toward the future, intent on what would come, without forgetting – or regretting – what had gone before.

= = = = =

The End


End file.
